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RPlog:Battle of Gyndine
The Inquisitor's time so far on Gyndine had been uneventful, and one might have hoped that it would stay that way until more permanent reinforcements could be dispatched to the system. The HIMS, an old Victory II-class was out somewhere at the system's edges, taking care that the Republic didn't try anything, and the Gyndine garrison was on raised alert. "Captain, there's a freighter that's emitting a very powerful beam for some reason, I'm...I'm not sure why though. It has for a few minutes now.", the on-duty sensors officer announced to the Captain, the CO's turn to spend time on the bridge having come. Shortly after the man had said his words, an answer was provided. Light flashes started appearing very close to where the freighter was, roughly halfway between the planet and the shipyards. Very bright and very large ones as warships made the transition from hyperspace to actual space. Those closest to the Inquisitor were a pair of heavy cruisers, the organic shape of their hulls marking them to be of Mon Calamari design. That was enough to make them Republican vessels, and as such enemies come for battle. "Well, what is it, Lieutenant, a navigational..." He cuts the question off as the array of red dots appear on the tactical console. "Never mind. Beat to quarters, all hands to action stations." he chirps airingly. "Helm, thirty seven degree port yaw rotation. Drop docking bay shields and give the remaining TIEs exit cover," he instructs calmly, watching the scopes in front of him. "Signal all capital assets to form battle line abreast of flagship." As the other vessels moved to their assigned missions, the Rapier and its companion the Promise were left to hold off the Inquisitor and keep it from interfering too openly. The Rapier had not seen much in the form of capital ship vs. capital ship combat, but its crew had , and certainly its commander. Speaking of the CO, the man stood on the Rapier's bridge, at the second level of the vessel, if such designations mattered in behemoths such as these, his hands crossed behind his back. There was very little for him to do as his crew went about their tasks. IT was only when the Rapier had reoriented itself on the Inquisitor that he issued his first command. "Launch Ghost and Falcon Squadron, launch Dagger but hold it back until enemy fighters are engaged." The Rapier's hangar started spitting flight after flight of its fighter complement. "Aim forward guns on the Inquisitor, draw its attention to us.", perhaps not the wisest of things to do given the size discrepancy. Along with the rest of his flight, Ghost 8 took off from the Rapier's hangar, engines powering him up and away. The emptiness of space was almost a dizzying sight as he followed his more experienced squadron mate's lead, and soon he was flying towards the Inquisitor, an imposing sight if ever there was one. The Inquisitor's crew takes a few moments to catch up with their captain's rapid stream of orders. As a group, the lesser star destroyers, cruisers and frigates in the area move toward the Imperial battle line, but are largely cut off by the rest of the Republic forces. "Captain, they're targeting us." "Of course they are, they're here to stand in our way and keep us from boosting our combat stats in the rest of the battle. Cut aft deflectors, boost forward, and take them out one at a time if they're dumb enough to sit next to each other like that; start with the one that doesn't seem as interested in our demise. Plot firing solutions and execute." Next, Valerius presses the com button to Jonas' squadron. "Mr. Alsten, I would be most obliged if you could make your way over here and join us, or are you having too much fun out there?" Lazing about in his cockpit while on patrol until now, Jonas perks up slightly upon hearing the chatter over his comlink and moves into formation with his squadron. "Sorry," he replies, grimacing. "Just a bit eager for some payback on the rebel scum that trashed my fighter last time. I think I owe it to them to shove a concussion missile or two up their engines." One thing the two cruisers had going for them, despite their classification as heavy cruisers, was that they were fairly maneuverable. Oh, not like smaller corvettes, but they were certainly limber enough given what they were up against. The Promise's crew had started to put some distance between it and the Rapier, the two vessels apparently to come at the Star Destroyer from opposite sides. And as such, with an extra boost of engines, the MC40 passed over the bulk of the fire. The Rapier, left alone apparently, wasted no time in getting to work and its forward batteries started firing upon the Star Destroyer opposite it. "Concentrate your fire on one section, we'll take down their shields one by one.", the instructions were relayed by the GunChief to the various batteries, and the forward sensor arrays were targetted. Somehow, Ghost 8 found himself almost at the forefront of the Republic's attack in this section, his flight serving as the spear's tip. From a distance, a group of Ties so much like those he had recently engaged were seen and he began feeding some targets into his astromech. The droid came back with the most likely one, one just a bit to the side of the formation, and he began pushing towards it, S-foils unfolding. "..." The Inquisitor is a large and stable enough vessel that the reverberations of such impacts are typically not physically felt, something its Captain kind of misses from his days in smaller craft. It seemed to motivate people more. Nonetheless, he feels it in looking at the numbers on his display. "Fire Control...Bridge." he says drawlingly with his finger depressing the com unit, in an obviously unpleased tone. "Let's try that again. Recalculate for a 12 degree radial spread and fire." The next instruction is to the tactical station, who relays it to the fighter squadrons in the area. "Inquisitor to all nearby fighters, form on the Star Destroyer for defensive flight patterns." "Roger that," Jonas chirps back, acknowledging the order before maneuvering his fighter along with the rest of his squad into a defensive position. He glances out of his cockpit to his squadmates and sighs. "I'd rather be taking the fight to them, but they'll be 'round here soon enough," he mutters to himself. A bit ahead of his flight and in turn his flight a bit ahead of the rest of the starfighter screen, the zabrak within Ghost 8 kicked his vessel's engines to their maximum. This allowed him to come within range of the Tie and barely has this happened that he goes ahead and squeezes his trigger. The plasma bolts streak towards the enemy Tie, the man hoping that even should they miss, at least the Tie's attention is drawn. Again it was a miss, although a closer one, the Promise's maneuverings mitigating the damage incurred and barely scorching its shields. The two vessels were paralel to each other now, speeding ahead to come up at the Inquisitor from opposite sides and reduce the damage any one of them could take. A pack of wolves, or a duo of them anyway, they could be described as. And while the Promise maneuvered, the Rapier was free to fire at will, again aiming for the same section of the Inquisitor. What's left of the volley peppers harmlessly across the Promise's shields, too distributed across its hull to overcome the craft's shield capacitor recharge rate to do any real damage. "Ventral attitude thrusters, twenty degrees down angle for two seconds," he quickly instructs the helm in anticipation of the cruiser's return fire. The Inquisitor's bow descends slightly, and most of the cruiser's fire passes harmlessly over its superstructure. Despite the success of the manuever, he has a particularly unamused expression on his face as he walks down the bridge concourse with a deliberate slowness, stopping directly over the fire control station. "Move," he says simply, standing over the officer's console. Bringing up the holodisplay, he draws several targeting tracks across it, following his own intuition and experience over the targeting computer's sometimes-inane suggestions. "Fire down the line!" In an impressive displays, the guns fire one by one, drawing an intricate and carefully designed arc--this time at the Rapier. Jonas lets out a grunt as his fighter is rocked by laser fire. "Agh! I'm hit!" he cries out over the squadron comlink. "Looks like we've got company. Let's mop 'em up, guys!" Almost immediately he gives chase to the X-wing that had shot at him, breaking formation. "Well, well, well. You guys just don't know when to quit, do you?" Jonas squeezes the trigger and fires a small volley at his quarry. "Let's see how -you- like it!" "You again?", the Zabrak replies, whatever surprise he ought to feel at just how many times he's engaged this particular opponent overriden by his sudden eagerness for the dogfight. "Just means I get to shoot you down nice and proper." He banks sharply to the right only to once more change his trajectory so that he's gunning straight for the opposite Tie. And again he fires off his cannons. The Rapier after the first hit or so from the Inquisitor's guns does not hesitate, its engines flare brightly as she maneuvers towards the gun that have already and away from those that haven't, the rest of the barrage flying harmlessly by. But Rasi does not content himself with giving the PRomise the only opportunity to fire, and he gives the command to fire. The overall battle's progress was watched on one of the bridge's holos, but his attention was for the main part on the Star Destroyer he had engaged. "Fire engines, signal all decks to rig for broadside action starboard! Seal all openings and hatches!" As Valerius returns up to the bridge concourse, the Inquisitor's engines flare into bright blue life as it accelerates toward the heavy cruiser, its starboard guns lancing bright bolts of spun plasma toward it as it moves on a parallel course to the Rapier. Jonas pulls out as his Avenger takes more hits, wincing. "Today's just not my day," he mutters to himself. He loops around to try and get behind the Zabrak, waiting until he's within his targeting reticule before launching a single concussion missile at him. "Let's try this one on for size." There was no growing cocky from Rasi's part, he knew that at the first serious hit on his Rapier, there would be serious damage. But, things were going well and so he set his vessel to more daring offensives rather than the simple delaying of so far. "Draw us closer to those sensor arrays, let's see if we can't isolate them even more.". Seeing the strongest asset available to the Gyndine garrison neutralized, as he hoped, might not do much for Imperial morale, and that would only help the Republic's battleplan. Again the cruiser's heavy batteries fired, and while there is no sound heard, the vibration of those huge guns firing volley after volley could be felt aboard the Rapier. "Brother you're not escaping this easy.", rather than go on the offensive right away, Ghost 8 allows the Tie to draw ever closer to him on his 6'o clock. The maneuver he attempts is nothing if not dangerous, his X-wing is pulled on a tight 180, the G forces slamming into him enough to draw him perilously closer to unconsciousness. "Shut up, I got it, trust me!", he calls out to the alarmed beeps of his astromech, and again he squeezes his trigger before continuing his turn and dipping below the approaching Tie. "Reverse engines, keep us alongside them. They won't want to be there for long." Valerius instructs, stepping up to the observation window's glass and peering at the cruiser's bridge curiously, wondering who it might be here in the chair opposite his. "Launch bomber squadrons. Tell the fighters still not engaged to escort them in a bombing run across the cruiser's side facing us. I want their facing shields down." In the heat of the moment, and relatively protected from enemy fire from the larger ships, the bomber squadrons exit their bays into the space underneath the Star Destroyer. The Rapier was rocked powerfully by the sudden impact of the Inquisitor's fire. The Star Destroyer might not hit all the time, but it could hit like a beast when it did. The Rapier slows and begins reversing its approach towards the Inquisitor, Rasi's earlier gamble proving itself not worth it when the mission is at stake. "Continue pouring everything towards its sensor arrays. We have to hold it from interfering." Interfere in what though? The bulk of the Republic's strike force was concentrated on the Imperial garrison that sallied it to meet it. But a few of the capital vessels were being used against Gyndine's primary Golan spacestation, the one that covered the main approach towards the planet itself. While it was still exchanging fire hot and fast with the capital ships attacking it, the damage it was taking was apparent. The wider battle was in some ways a reflection of the fight between the Inquisitor and the two Republican cruisers, close but in favour of the Republic at the moment. Having missed, the zabrak kicks in the throttles on his engine, the X-wing jumping away just in time to miss the return fire directed at him. But just as quickly Ghost 8 is back on the attack and he endeavours to get a good enough shot at the Tie before firing once more. Little attention was paid to the wider battle at the moment, "Don't worry about being forced to eject, if you don't die right away, your friends will save you after I shoot you down." Notably unamused by his being absent from the battle at large, the Imperial captain instead watches the progress of the smaller battle from the vantage point of the bridge. With luck, they'd get out of the way eventually anyway. The previously-summoned bombers, trying not to break formation as they move through the point defense fire and other craft, fly around and over the Inquisitor's bow to start their run. "Concentrate directly over their gun emplacements. Fire for effect." he instructs, noting the Republic craft's determination to disable the Inquisitor's sensor array--something he would need if he was to break away from this little engagement and turn the tide of the larger battle. Several lights on the dashboard in Jonas' cockpit begin flashing red, warning him that his shields are dangerously low as he takes yet another hit. He ignores it, for the most part, instead concentrating solely on his oppoenent. "Dammit!' he growls, weaving back and forth through the battle to try and lose the rebel fighter on his tail. Once he's lost him, Jonas circles back around and flies in from behind, showering the opposing ship with more laser fire. While each cruiser carried only about half of what the Inquisitor did in terms of starfighter complement, together they matched up the larger vessel. And while most of their squadrons were engaged against the Inquisitor's Ties, both of the Avenger and Mark II kind, some had been kept back for just this. The Promise's reserve flights, however, did not stop the bombers from making their runs against the Rapier and point defence lasers started being brought to life on the targetted ship. Targets were fed to the PDLs' computers and they started humming to life, flooding the darkness with short, rapid bursts of anti-fighter fire. "Keep our main weapons on the Inquisitor, instruct Dagger squadron to commence its run against the same section as we targetting, coordinate so that there is no friendly fire.", the rapid-fire issuance of commands done, Rasi returned to observing the fighting on the holo-terminal he stood before, nodding at a comment here and there from one of the officers around him. Ghost 8's streak came to an end as his X-wing was rocked by the sudden strike. "Deal with that, I'll try and get him to back off.", of course the zabrak's definition of back off might not match up with his astromech's. The X-wing begins swerving from one side to the other, rolling wildly in a pattern of half-arcs one way and then half-arcs the next. But just as he begun one motion similar to the others, he turned sharply into the pursuing Tie, his cannons fired at it soon after. As the Inquisitor's guns pause and retrain after their previous tight barrage down the cruiser's gun line, the two groups of six Scimitar assault bombers make their run, taking advantage of the heat of the moment and the cruiser's disorientation from the raking it just received. The scimitars fly back to the Inquisitor to regroup for another run, dodging around the rapid bursts of light laser fire from the cruiser's point defense cannons. "Razor squadron, status reports, we've got bombers incoming." the Inquisitor's tac officer requests over the local static. The Inquisitor's guns flare in a similar pattern to before, lancing bright green bolts of spun plasma toward the Rapier's facing side. The lights in Jonas' cockpit are flashing wildly now, coupled with frantic warning beeps. "Alsten here," he radios in, attempting to speak and maneuver his fighter at the same time. "Taking heavy damage here; shields almost gone. I don't know how much more punishment I can take." He cuts off his transmission to focus on his opponent, pulling back on the flight controls and steering himself into a somersault to get behind the Zabrak. "Damn it! Hold still and let me shoot you!" he yells, jamming the fire button on his missiles as hard as he can. Again his astromech shrieked, the Zabrak tuning it out, he was listening to a transmission from the Rapier's flight control instructing them to keep the Inquisitor's fighters busy while the B and Y wings of Dagger made their run. It wasn't particularly easy for him, especially now that his hull was directly exposed, but he had plenty of it compared to the Tie he had engaged. And, while selfish a desire, he wanted to bring down his enemy. Rather than retreat and regroup, he set his X-wing straight back and towards the Tie, guns blazing. The Rapier was taking more and more damage now, and the battle started to even out, but Rasi had a job to do and pulling out at the first sign of trouble was not it. "Instruct Dagger squadron to make its run.", the Rapier continued its maneuvers and while the dual attack from the Inquisitor and the enemy bombers made things harder, it wasn't a lost fight. The point defence weaponry started to take real bites out of the Scimitars attacking it, but there remained the matter of the enemy Star Destroyer, and for it it was more of the same, the Rapier's fire concentrated on its sensors. Valerius smirks slightly at the com chatter, and pauses from his normal chain of precise and detailed commands to look over at the fighter display board and key in Jonas' frequency. "Need some help over there, Mr. Alsten?" To the Captain, the pilot is sort of another 'player' in their game of war, more than just a blip on the screen, something he would consider a bad mark to lose. "50 credits says I could hit him with a volley from the main port batteries--oh...nice," The last part comes as the two fly directly across the bridge's line of sight. "Carry on," he quips, depressing the com button. The conversation draws a few odd glances from some of the bridge officers less accustomed to their commander's antics. "...What? Don't look at me like that." The Captain returns his attention to the main status displays. "Spin up port point defense turrets, approach vector 11. Prior orders on the cruiser." Per his instructions, a spread pattern of fire from the rapidly-firing small cannons light up the sky around the incoming B-wings, and another series of volleys limns the Rapier's shields in green light. Surprisingly, each side's bombers were neutralized and so no killshot could be delivered, in the wider picture, that might have been considered a win for the Rapier. But the situation was far too close for comfort, and so Rasi continues with the conservative strategy chosen. "Send the bombers again, let's see if they can't rattle anything the Inquisitor anymore than it is." Meanwhile, the Rapier's big guns continued their firing sequence, by now things having for them boiled down to a rinse and repeat. The Astromech did not have much cause to worry as much as it did then, the zabrak able to roll out of the way of the incoming fire. And the roll is continued until the Tie passes him by, swinging his fighter's nose towards it and unleashing another burst of fire. Valerius' suppressive fire pattern and a course adjustment seem to do the trick to deter the enemy bombers, forcing the B-wings to bank in different directions and ruin their approach vector. "Order the bombers to re-engage," he says angrily, sitting back down in his chair placed in the center of the concourse in front of the large holodisplay. "Fire control, conn. Ghosting your terminal, leave it alone." An interactive holo of the tie-in to the fire control console lights up in front of him, and the Captain's fingers fly deftly across it with a practiced ease, more or less copying what he had done earlier to manually program the tracks. The result is an eerie, silent pause a few seconds in length as the Inquisitor's guns reconfigure themselves. Once the moment passes, the starboard batteries of the Inquisitor again flare into bright and pronounced life in a series of sporadic but calculated bursts. Each of the weapons is pressed into a brief cycle of dangerously rapid fire, stressing the cooling mechanisms, then left to cool just long enough to do it again--it should be pretty obvious that someone else is at their controls. Jonas once again dodges his enemy's shots, and despite him not scoring a hit on his opponent either, he's grinning. He engages the thrusters on his TIE to gain a little extra speed boost to evade his pursuer and then loops around, trying to get a lock. "C'mon, c'mon. Hit!" As soon as his targeting reticule beeps, he lets loose a volley of emerald lasers on the X-wing. "Whoever their new gunnery chief is, he's skilled.", Rasi comments to his XO, the two men standing beside one another, Rasi having conversed with him from time to time during this battle. While the Inquisitor's shields were close to blowing, his own were less than half what they had been, and each sides' bombers had proved relatively ineffective, the fighter squadrons cancelling each other out. "Continue firing on it, we can't let it get through hus and stop them from destroying that battlestation. By drawing so much power to their guns to maintain that rate of fire, they'll weaken their shields.", and so power was increased to their guns, a reverse of the Inquisitor's tactic, each shot, were it to land, a sure hammer blow. "Full reverse thrusters, helm. Back us off." Valerius sighs disdainfully as the Inquisitor's shields buckle and collapse under the stress, unable to dissipate any more of the Rapier's attacks. Ceding the fire control terminal to its original controller, he resumes less direct command of the vessel. "Issue warnings to all damage control parties. And GET THAT THINGS SHIELDS DOWN!" The bombers once again try to reform and make a run on the Rapier, and the vessel to which they belong brings its forwards guns to bear on the Rapier as it lists backwards through space. As an afterthought, Valerius depresses the com panel, this time hailing the Rapier. "Inquisitor to Rebel Star Cruiser; your ship is ugly." There is no visible sign that the Inquisitor is no longer shielded, a slight ripple perhaps, but it can't really be seen, particularly at the distance that the Rapier is at. But the cruiser's sensors were able to transmit that they were no longer there to stop the Promise and Rapier's onslaught. Although, ironically, it was Dagger squadron itself that dealt the coup de grace. But in turn, the Rapier's own were too close to being brought down by the combined firepower of the enemy bombers and most importantly the Inquisitor's heavy guns. After a short conversation with the commander of the task group the Rapier was assigned to, the cruiser began to pull back to outside of the Star Destroyer's range. Retreat, it seemed, was the order of the day from the Republic's warships. The Golan battlestation was crippled now, fire gutting its structure and large chunks of debris floating off from the main body. It had not exploded, but with its engines destroyed and the damage to other core subsystems , it might have been only a matter of time. The attackers were not without their own wounds, the NRSD Bluegrass having sustained heavy damage, the warship having been targetted early on after being identified as the task group's flagship. "It is nice to see that you people are just as prone to silly theatrics. The crew of the NRSC Rapier will be seeing you again.", Rasi transmitted this in the same manner as his ship was hailed, there was neither derision nor smugness to be heard from him. In the heat of battle, Rasi had little emotions he displayed so very rarely, if ever, in more quiet times. The fighters disengaged from their individual fights, cover provided by their motherships as everything was poured at the enemy fighters. There was little chance that any noticeable damage would be dealt, but it was designed to grant the various A, X and B/Y wings time to get back to the retreating capital ships before the jump back to hyperspace was to be made.